Pendragon
by mnemosyne23
Summary: On a lush planet devoid of sentient life, the crew of the Enterprise discover an ancient alien religious artifact that takes two of the crew on a vision quest to Camelot. Malcolm/Hoshi. COMPLETE!
1. Eden

**TITLE:** PENDRAGON  
_CHAPTER 1: Eden_  
  
**AUTHOR:** MNEMOSYNE  
**SUMMARY:** On a lush planet devoid of sentient life, the crew of the _Enterprise_ discover an ancient alien religious artifact that takes two of the crew on a vision quest to Camelot.   
**DISCLAIMER:** All _Enterprise_ related characters are the property of their rightful owners. Any new situations, characters, creatures, etc, are mine. :-D  
**RATING:** PG  
**CATEGORY:** Angst, Drama, Romance  
**CODES:** R/S, with a little bit of everyone  
**NOTES:** Hello, everyone! I bet you all thought I'd forgotten about _Enterprise_, didn't you? ;) Well I haven't! I've just been fighting with a bout of Writer's Block coupled with unexplainable exhaustion for the past few weeks. Rest assured, I WILL finish "Ghosts in the Cellar" (for those of you interested), but until then, here is another R/S offering for my fellow _Ent_ enthusiasts.   
As the summary states, this story DOES involve the legendary kingdom of Camelot, but before you start picturing gallant knights on horseback and ladies in waiting, I want to tell you that Camelot is really just a backdrop. This story is more about the interaction between two people, and less about the setting wherein they find themselves. In a way, it's an extended vignette more than a story. I hope, however, that this doesn't in any way dim your opinion of it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it! It's been quite the labor of love, let me assure you. LOL! So please, read on and enjoy!   
  


* * *

  
_"I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls   
with vassals and serfs at my side,   
and of all who assembled within those walls   
that I was the hope and the pride.   
I had riches all too great to count   
and a high ancestral name.   
But I also dreamt which pleased me most   
that you loved me still the same…" _

-"Marble Halls"  
Enya 

  
  
Lush. Verdant. Full of life. Effervescent. 

Ensign Hoshi Sato stared across the gently rolling meadow, her brown eyes drifting calmly over the swells of each new hillock, before brushing over the dark, ragged fringe of the coniferous forest that marked the glen's northern border. Behind her, the fragrant grass undulated gracefully backward until it bumped up against the clear, rippling water of a deep blue river. The water wasn't truly blue, but it reflected the sky so perfectly, despite its ripples, that the crew had taken to calling it the River Cloud. If she stared deep enough into the water, she could see the very bottom, deep down - deeper than a man is tall, or diminutive ensigns for that matter. Smooth stones pebbled the shoreline; a few had already made it back to her small, private rock garden aboard _Enterprise_. 

Hoshi closed her eyes. //This,// she thought with a soft sigh, //is Eden.// 

"Ensign?" 

She would not groan. She would not laboriously turn her head and fix the approaching armory officer with a hard, penetrating stare. She would not say something rude and worthy of court martial. Any and all of those would ruin the perfect tranquility of this place; the delicate pool of calm that nestled around her heart, slowing her pulse to a lazy ripple. 

She would, however, ignore him. Maybe he'd go away. 

"Ensign Sato? Hoshi?" 

//Breathe....breathe....breathe...// 

"Hoshi? Are you awake? Ensign Sato!" 

He was standing beside her now. His shadow had fallen over her relaxed posture, dimming the honey-orange glow of the sun through her closed eyelids. No doubt he was staring at her with stony blue eyes and an even stonier set to his jaw. Lean arms crossed over a taut torso, back ramrod straight, mouth set in an admonishing line, as though she had been caught napping during an enemy attack. 

Slowly - the kind of slow that lets the other person know you are unwilling to move ANY muscles - Hoshi opened her eyes. "I'm awake, Lieutenant Reed," she said calmly, refusing to let his intrusion disrupt her serenity. "Did you need something?" She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from finishing her question with, _A swift kick in the pants, perhaps?_

Malcolm's eyes flickered faintly. Hoshi had the uneasy feeling he knew perfectly well what she HADN'T said. "Captain Archer sent me to find you," he told her with clipped, British precision. "We've discovered an obelisk approximately a mile upriver." 

Hoshi's brow furrowed. "An obelisk?" she asked, accepting his proferred hand and allowing herself to be pulled to her feet. "Why didn't we read it on sensors when we arrived?" 

"One of many questions that need answering, Ensign," Reed replied. "Sub-Commander T'Pol is working on that one. You are needed for something quite different." 

"Oh? What's that?" 

"Runes." 

Hoshi frowned. "Runes?" 

"Runes." 

"Excuse me if I sound like an idiot here, Lieutenant, but...what about runes?" 

"The obelisk, Ensign, is covered in runes." The armory officer was already walking away. Hoshi found her inner contentment being jarred, for no real reason, by the confident roll of his shoulders. It seemed to her that Malcolm Reed could be surrounded by choirs of angels and be unmoved. Or, more befittingly, could be smack dab in the middle of Eden and not notice the baby lambs for the snakes at his feet. "Last I checked, that was your field of expertise. It's all a bunch of rubbish to me - looks like chicken feet." 

Hoshi sighed and hurried to catch up to him. "They'd have to be alien chickens," she muttered under her breath, low enough to go unheard. She didn't think he'd appreciate the joke. 

  
************* 

  
The obelisk was tall, but not enormous. By Earth standards, it was puny. The Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., dwarfed it considerably. The Sky Spire of Vella Prime put it to shame. But this obelisk was far more interesting than either of those because this monument was the only sign of sentient life they'd discovered on this luxuriant planet so far. Other than a plump, cuddly form of alien rabbit and a willowy, spiny creature that resembled a sloth made of twigs, the crew hadn't run across anything bigger than a potato bug during their three day exploration of the surface. 

Hoshi was enthralled by the delicate carvings which decorated the structure the instant she laid eyes on them. They were obviously very old. Far from the "chicken feet" of Malcolm's description, they were intricately chiseled and incredibly dynamic. Already she'd been able to decipher a rich language of verb tenses and subordinate possessives that classified the creators of this obelisk as a highly advanced society, possibly rivaling the Vulcans in terms of intelligence and philosophy. 

So where were they? 

"Sensors are still not reading the structure, Captain," she heard T'Pol say behind her. 

"Any idea why, Sub-Commander?" Jon sounded like he was having a hard time splitting his attention. His curiosity about the nature of the spire was fighting for dominance with his awe at the structure's very existence. 

"It would appear the structure does not exist." 

Hoshi pulled herself away from her study of the runes to stare over her shoulder in disbelief. 

"What?" Jonathan snapped in surprise. T'Pol didn't so much as flicker a cool eyebrow. "What are you talking about, Sub-Commander?" 

"I know it sounds crazy, Jon, but it's the closest we've gotten to an explanation since we stumbled over the thing." 

Hoshi turned her attention away from the Vulcan. Commander Charles "Trip" Tucker was approaching, clambering over the stony ground that surrounded the towering block of stone. "T'Pol and I have been over this thing with a fine tooth comb. We've picked at it, poked it, prodded it, given it the third degree. We've done everything but beat it with a rubber hose, and it's still not coughing up any secrets." The engineer came to a stop beside his commanding officer, forming the classic triad of the captain, engineer, and chief science officer. He looked as confused as Hoshi was feeling. "Doesn't matter WHAT it's made of, we should be able to get some reading off it now that we've done such close study. Still nothing. Closest we can figure is it exists in some kind of temporal dilation. It's here, but at the same time, it isn't. It's like a shadow." 

"A shadow?" Archer didn't sound convinced. "Trip..." He reached out and rapped his knuckles on the stone. "You see that? I'm touching it. I'm standing next to it. Its got weight. How the hell can you call THIS a shadow?" 

Trip shrugged. "I'm working on getting you a clearer answer, Jon, but I don't know how much luck I'm going to have. I mean, I swear even T'Pol here was on the verge of cussing once or twice while we were trying to get THIS much." 

"I do not cuss, Commander." 

"I said you were on the verge, T'Pol. And you gotta admit you were." 

Before they could embark on one of their patented squabbles, Archer interrupted. "Perhaps Hoshi can shed some light on all this." Three pairs of eyes turned in her direction. "Have you had any luck translating, Ensign?" 

Hoshi nodded, glad to have something to contribute. "There's still a lot of work to be done, but from what I've gathered so far, this appears to have been some kind of holy place." She held up the PADD she was working with for the captain's inspection. 

Archer took it. "Holy place?" He thumbed through some of her pages of translation. 

"It's called the Vision Stone," she continued, turning back to her study of the runes. "Whoever these people were, they valued visions as dearly as those who visited Delphi during the times of ancient Greece. They considered a vision to be a holy message from the mouth of their gods. This place - the Vision Stone - seems to have been built on what they considered a very powerful point of cosmic energy, called the God's Breath." Her fingers traced the runes as she spoke. 

"So, what... They had questions, and they'd come here and get answers?" Trip asked. 

Hoshi shook her head. "No...," she murmured, staring at the intricate language. "This wasn't that type of oracle. People didn't come here to ask about their crops or who they should marry." She smiled faintly as she felt ripples of history coursing through her blood from the tips of her fingers as they caressed the stone. "They came here to learn about themselves." 

"What do you mean, Ensign?" T'Pol asked. 

"Do you know who you are, Sub-Commander?" Hoshi asked in response. 

"I am Sub-Commander T'Pol, assigned to the starship _Enterprise_ as liason between -" 

"No, Sub-Commander, that's not what I mean." Hoshi looked over her shoulder at the statuesque Vulcan. "When you have to make a decision, what makes you choose one thing over another?" 

"Logic," T'Pol replied immediately. 

"But what makes one choice more logical than another? If you're being attacked by an enemy, is it more logical to surrender, or to attempt escape? If you're tired, but you have to finish a report, is it more logical to get it finished THEN go to bed, or to sleep, then wake earlier to finish it first thing in the morning? If you have to choose between the fish or the chicken, is it more logical to choose the fish or the chicken?" 

"You are not making sense, Ensign." 

Hoshi resisted the urge to sigh in frustration. "You make choices based on YOUR version of logic, Sub-Commander. But your logic and someone else's logic may be utterly and completely different." 

"Amen, sister," Trip said under his breath. Hoshi fought down a smile. 

"So what you're saying is, these people came to this place... to see why they made the choices they made?" Archer asked. 

"Exactly," Hoshi answered with a nod, then turned back to the runes. 

"They came here to understand who they were," she murmured. "And perhaps to know how other people saw them, looking from the outside in." 

There was silence as the four of them digested that knowledge. Hoshi let her mind wander over the implications of what she'd just said. A shiver of wonder ran up and down her spine. To know what other people thought of you... That was a frightening thought. Could she bring herself to ask that question of the gods? Could she bear the answer, if it wasn't what she wanted to hear? 

Even more frightening.... to know herself. Completely. There were still aspects of her personality she didn't understand, and wasn't entirely proud of. Her selfishness when it came to Christmas gifts. How much she hated people who looked in the mirror too much. Her utter belief in the one-time existence of unicorns. Her fear of heights. Her fear of small spaces. Her fear of being always afraid. 

She didn't think she would have been brave enough to worship at this stone. She didn't know many people who could have done it. 

"Captain, we've found something." 

Okay, except for him. He wasn't afraid of anything. 

"What is it, Malcolm?" Archer asked, walking around the stone to where the armory officer and three of his security team were examining the opposite side. Hoshi stood up and followed with Trip and T'Pol. 

"This, sir," Reed responded, pointing to an elaborate design - reminiscent of a Celtic knot - that looked oddly out of place amongst the rune carvings on the obelisk's surface. "We've been trying to figure out what it might be, and I think we've discovered something." 

Hoshi watched as the other members of his team moved forward, placing themselves in predetermined positions, technical equipment at the ready. This was Malcolm's forte - the concerted study of a problem until a solution presented itself. It was an admirable quality in a man whose rank required him to think on his feet much of the time. 

"What did you come up with, Lieutenant?" Archer asked, his impatience showing a little in the clipped way he said _Lieutenant._

"A lock, sir." 

Hoshi frowned and moved forward to look more closely at the pattern. It had stumped her as much as anyone. But a lock… it did make a certain amount of sense. There even appeared to be a faint, hairline crack running in a rectangular pattern from the ground, up about 9 feet, then down again. Perfect dimensions for a door for a particularly tall race of people. 

Malcolm was instructing his men to do this with their shoulders, and to do that with the settings on their phase pistols. Hoshi stood back with the rest of the crew and watched as, on cue, the members of the armory team aimed their phase pistols at the complex pattern and fired. 

There was no explosion. No shards of stone shot out at the onlookers as they watched Malcolm and his team methodically "pick the lock" of the ancient door. Hoshi found she was holding her breath as she watched the swirls of the Celtic pattern start to glow hot and red. 

Then, with a belch of stale air and dust, the rectangular crack moaned and shifted, revealing a narrow strip of black along one edge. Not black like ebony, but black like space. Empty black. 

The obelisk was hollow. And they'd just found the door. 

"Excellent deduction, Lieutenant," the captain enthused, clapping Malcolm on the shoulder. 

Malcolm nodded tersely. "Thank you, sir." 

Hoshi watched as the armory team moved forward, planted their shoulders against the modest ridge of the exposed door, and pushed with all their might. Slowly - very slowly - the heavy stone door began to creep outward, revealing more and more of the dark, empty interior of the obelisk. She shivered as cold air that had been trapped for centuries ebbed out into the sun-dappled forest around them. 

"Shall we take a look inside?" Jonathan asked cheerfully. 

"Please, sir, if you'd allow me," Malcolm said quickly, moving forward before anyone could stop him. "It might be booby trapped." 

Archer crossed his arms. "They'd have to be very old booby traps, Malcolm." 

"And if someone shot you with a longbow, you'd still be dead. Even very old things can be very effective, sir." Phase pistol at the ready, the armory officer carefully inspected the stone doorway, checking closely for hidden trip wires or other mechanisms that might trigger a reaction from the ancient structure. 

Hoshi felt a wave of something that might have been foreboding wash over her. This didn't feel right. It was like unearthing Native American burial grounds, or looting Egyptian pyramids. This was a holy place, not a scientific discovery. If it truly existed in time dilation, then it might well still half-exist in the time when it had been built. They might walk into the structure and find themselves disturbing the ancient prayer rituals of a long dead society. 

"Wait, Malcolm, stop…!" she sputtered, lunging for his arm as he took a step over the threshold. 

There was a sudden crushing weight of black on her skull. 

Then there was light. 

  
*********** 

  
Slowly, carefully, she opened her eyes. And gaped. 

"Bloody hell," Malcolm muttered, rubbing the back of his head as he sat up beside her. "What happened? This place is awfully large. It looked quite small from the outside, don't you think?" 

"Malcolm," Hoshi whispered, still staring in disbelief at the room around her. 

"What?" he snapped, still rubbing his head. "Blast, I think I hit my head on the wall when we fell." 

With determination that both shocked her and made her proud, Hoshi grabbed his chin and forced him to look up. "Malcolm… Look at this," she murmured, breathless with disbelief. 

She felt Malcolm go stiff beside her. "How in heaven's…." he gasped, staring. 

This was not what either of them had expected, that was certain. As Malcolm had observed, the room was much, MUCH larger than it should have been. It was, in fact, about the size of the bridge aboard _Enterprise_. The walls were made of solid blocks of stone, draped in heavy, detailed tapestries. A heavily paneled, wooden door stood in one wall, obviously leading out of the room and into the rest of the castle; this was definitely a castle. Thick brocade curtains hung to either side of a window carved into the stone wall. Through the window, Hoshi could see a bustling courtyard, filled with vendors and horse carts, and small children dressed in dirty tunics, fighting with wooden swords. "Where are we?" she whispered, afraid to speak up, in case it somehow broke the spell they'd found themselves in. She was also trying not to clue him in to the fact that they had somehow wound up in a bed. Together. 

Before Malcolm could even try to answer, the massive wooden door swung open, and in walked a plump, jolly looking woman in a simple dress and a wimple. Her arms were weighted down with what looked like clean bed linens, and she was humming a cheerful, off key tune. 

She gasped and froze when she saw Malcolm and Hoshi. "Yer highness! And yer highness!" She curtsied awkwardly, obviously taken by surprise. "Bless me, pardon my intrusion, m'Lord. Lady. I thought you'd be up and out of bed by this time! Mercy me, but I am embarrassed. I'll jus' leave these 'ere, shall I?" She hurriedly set the linens on an ornate mahogany chest of drawers that stood against the wall by the door, topped with a candelabra and a red velvet runner adorned with golden tassles. "You can jus' call one of the girls or meself when yer ready to rise, highnesses. I'll be going now." With another awkward curtsy, she started scooting backwards toward the door. 

"Wait!" Malcolm barked. 

The maid froze. "Y…Yes, m'Lord?" 

Malcolm sat up straighter and fixed the plump woman with a penetrating stare. "Where are we?" 

The maid stared at him for a second. 

Then, with a gleeful cackle, she started to laugh. 

"Oh, m'Lord, I've always 'eard you were a joker! That's a rich one, m'Lord! Oh!" She had to bend over to keep herself from falling, wiping away tears of mirth. 

Hoshi could feel Malcolm tensing beside her. Trying to diffuse the situation before he sent the poor woman off with a terrible fright, she laid a hand on his arm and said gently, "My lord IS quite the jester." She smiled. "What he meant to ask is, which of our estates is this? It's been such a frenzy of late, it is difficult to keep them straight." 

The maid gave them a broad smile, the apples of her cheeks glowing cherry red. "Of course, m'Lady. But this is Camelot! The jewel of your crown!" She beamed. "And we're most pleased to 'ave you back again, yer highnesses. Most truly pleased." With another curtsy - this time half-mixed with a bow - she scurried out the door and closed it firmly behind her. 

Malcolm and Hoshi sat in silent disbelief for a moment. Then, very slowly, they turned their heads to look each other square in the eyes. 

"Camelot," Malcolm said. 

"Camelot," Hoshi affirmed. 

"Which would make you-" 

"Guinevere." 

"And me-" 

"Arthur." 

"Right. I thought so." 

Another long pause. 

"Ensign?" 

"Yes, Lieutenant?" 

He pinched her. Hard. 

"OW!" she yelped, and slapped his hand away. "What was that for!" She rubbed the bruised flesh of her upper arm for a few seconds, trying to diffuse the hurt, and scowled at him. 

"I just wanted to see if this was a dream," he told her. 

"You're supposed to pinch YOURSELF for that, SIR," she said, annoyed. After a moment she reached out and pinched him. Hard. Harder than he'd pinched her. 

"Ow!" he exclaimed, yanking away from her hand and glaring. "We've already established this isn't a dream, ENSIGN. No need for any more of that!" 

"Sorry, SIR, but I wasn't convinced." 

More silence passed between them, much less amiable than before. After a few minutes, Hoshi sighed and flopped back in the bed. 

"NOW what do we do?" she asked, staring at the embroidered canopy of the king sized feather bed. 

Malcolm flopped back as well and joined her stare. "I have no idea," he said. 

"That's not very comforting." 

"It's not my job to comfort." 

"No, but you're supposed to be the tactical officer. So… tacticalize. Think of a way out of this." 

"You're the cultural expert. We're obviously trapped in one of those visions you were describing. How do we make it stop?" 

Hoshi sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "Visions don't work that way," she told him. "You can't just make them stop. Once they've begun, you have to ride them out to the finish." 

She felt Malcolm's eyes burn into her profile, but ignored the stare. "Hoshi, you do realize how the Arthur legend ends, correct?" 

Hoshi sighed again, and tilted her head to look at him. "Yes, Malcolm, I am. Now, since I don't want to end up a nun, and I'm sure you don't want to end up dead, perhaps we should start trying to come up with a plan?" 

  
  
_TBC…_


	2. Ye Days of Olde

**TITLE:** PENDRAGON  
_CHAPTER 2: Ye Days of Olde_  
  
**AUTHOR:** MNEMOSYNE  
**SUMMARY:** On a lush planet devoid of sentient life, the crew of the _Enterprise_ discover an ancient alien religious artifact that takes two of the crew on a vision quest to Camelot.   
  


* * *

  
Malcolm's idea of _A plan_ turned out to be getting dressed and pacing. Lots and lots of pacing. 

"Malcolm, would you stop that?" Hoshi snapped. "You're making me dizzy." She was having no luck fastening the hooks and eyes and thousands of buttons that seemed to make up her dress. The entire blasted thing seemed to be made of buttons. 

"It helps me think, Hoshi," he snapped back. _Ensign_ and _Lieutenant_ had been forgotten for the moment. "And at least one of us needs to be thinking right now." 

That made her shoot him an acid glare. "Are you trying to imply I'm not trying to think of a way out of this?" 

"All you seem to be thinking about is your dress!" 

"That's because it has a mind of its own!" With a growl of fury, she tore the offending material off and threw it aside. She stood there in her shift, shivering with anger, frustration, and a little fear. And cold. Castles, it turned out, were chilly. 

A moment later, she felt a warm hand on her elbow, and it made her jump. She looked up. "I'm sorry," Malcolm said softly, gazing down into her eyes. "I shouldn't have yelled. I know you're trying just as hard as I am to think of a way out of here." 

Hoshi stared at him for a moment, enjoying the infusing warmth of her anger. After a few moments, her body loosened, and she gave him a faint smile. "I know," she murmured, nodding and looking down at his hand on her elbow. "I'm sorry, too. I guess we're just both on edge." 

Malcolm chuckled faintly. "That's quite the understatement. These breeches are terribly uncomfortable." 

Hoshi laughed then and looked up at him. His blue eyes were sparkling and a rare smile was crinkling the corners of his eyes. "Well at least you didn't need twenty hands to put them on," she told him. 

"If I'm remembering my history correctly, that's one of the reasons royalty had handmaidens. To help them dress. Perhaps we should call yours." 

Hoshi shuddered at the thought of being dressed by a melee of strangers. "I'll do it on my own, thank you," she told him firmly, and stared at the heap of green silk and embroidery at her feet. If it was possible for a dress to lurk, that was precisely what it was doing. 

She saw Malcolm stoop over to pick up the ornate material. He actually looked quite dashing in his blue and white velvet tunic, belted at the waist, and blue breeches, laced up the sides to accent his muscular legs. Even the leather boots were flattering. "Let me help you," he offered, standing up and offering her the bundle of cloth. "It's the least I can do." 

Hoshi stared at him for a second, then gave in. "Okay," she agreed, nodding once and taking the dress. "But if I'm still getting buttoned in after twenty minutes, I'm stealing your clothes and parading around as a man." 

Malcolm laughed as he helped her ease back into the dress. It was a comforting sound. 

  
*********** 

  
Three hours and one extensive search later, Hoshi found herself once again in the tower bedroom with Malcolm. All levity from their morning conversation had been forgotten, replaced with dour resignation. 

"Nothing," Malcolm said, voice grim and raspy. "I simply can't believe there's NOTHING." 

Hoshi didn't want to believe it, either, but that didn't mean she was a fool. Whatever they had to do to escape this vision, it wasn't going to be as simple as opening a door and stepping out onto the alien planet again. 

"So we have no visible means of escape," she proclaimed, accepting. "What does that leave us?" 

"The futile hope that Trip is somehow going to beam us out of this?" 

Hoshi couldn't resist a soft laugh. "Malcolm, be serious," she chided, smiling as she did so. "Like I said earlier, you're the tactical officer. What does your training tell us to do in this situation?" 

Malcolm sighed and slumped in an ornately carved and cushioned chair that someone had positioned beside the window, presumably at the same time they'd changed the bed linens. "My training tells me to wait this out," he replied, resting his elbows on his knees and staring at his clasped hands. "See what happens in the next few hours, or days, and seize any moment that may remedy our situation." 

Hoshi nodded once. "All right then. That's what we'll do." 

Malcolm quirked an amused eyebrow at her. "Yes sir, Captain sir." His eyes twinkled. 

Hoshi blushed. "Well... You know what I mean. What other options do we have?" 

Sighing heavily, Malcolm leaned back in his chair. "None," he murmured, staring through the window at the summer sky. Not one cloud scudded across the brilliant blue. They had all come to rest on Malcolm's brow. 

Uneasy silence fell. 

Hoshi watched Reed quietly for a moment. The blue of his clothes and the sky made his sharp eyes seem to glow, like matched sapphires. Lines of worry and frustration marked the corners of his mouth and wrinkled the skin around his eyes. Were she closer, she would have heard his teeth grinding together. Gone was the confident armory officer who had interrupted her meditation earlier that day. He had been replaced with a tense, worried man; still brave to a fault and full of pride, but wary. Considering. Conflicted. 

"Malcolm, you didn't cause this," Hoshi suddenly heard herself murmur. 

The tactical officer said nothing, which only convinced her of his doubt. 

"Malcolm..." Standing slowly, Hoshi made her way to his chair and knelt beside it, silky skirts rustling around her legs as she did so. "No one could have known what would happen when we stepped into the obelisk." One of his hands was resting on the detailed arm of the chair, and she covered it with her own. "Honestly, I'm glad it's you here, Malcolm, and not someone else." 

That got his attention. His head pivoted smoothly and he gazed down at her with distant blue eyes. "Why?" 

Hoshi smiled faintly. "Because you always stay cool in a crisis," she murmured, massaging his hand soothingly. "Because I know we work well together. Because I know we'll be able to think of a way out of here." A hint of a smile tugged at her lips. "And because you're British. Helps us blend with the locals." 

That made him smile, and even laugh a little. "Hoshi..." He trailed off, reaching out idly to push a lock of hair back from her eyes. "Thank God you're here, too." 

"Why?" 

"Because if I'd had to pretend Trip was my queen, I think I might have thrown myself out a window." 

They both laughed at that. Hard. 

"Feeling better now?" Hoshi asked, after they'd recovered themselves a bit. 

Malcolm nodded, smiling at her. "Much, m'Lady. Much." 

Hoshi grinned and stood up. "Then would my Lord care to join his queen for supper in the Banquet Hall?" she asked, offering him her hand and affecting her best British accent. 

Malcolm accepted her hand and stood as well. "The king would be honored to accept the invitation of his dear queen," he replied, bowing deeply. Warm, soft lips brushed over her knuckles before he straightened again. 

Hoshi smiled softly and kept her fingers laced with his. "Lead on, my Lord." 

They walked together to the door of the tower bedroom, and Malcolm swung it open on mighty creaking hinges. "After you, fair Guinevere," he said elegantly, gesturing for her to exit first. 

Hoshi laughed softly. "You can still call me Hoshi when we're alone, Malcolm," she reminded him. 

Malcolm grinned as they stepped out of the room. "I know. I couldn't resist. It's the dress." 

  
*********** 

  
Supper, it turned out, was a never ending affair. The calf wasn't just fatted in Camelot - it was stuffed and bloated and bursting with meat and blubber. It seemed to Hoshi they were eating for HOURS. Eating and drinking. Drinking and eating. Every time her cup reached the halfway point, it was refilled. When her trencher wasn't overflowing with beef and potatoes and carrots, it was tipping over with fish and fresh greens and bread. Lots and LOTS of bread. 

Which was how she found herself hours later, staggering with a very drunk Malcolm up steep, winding stairs towards the tower bedroom. The firey orange light of sunset painted patterns on the stone walls through arrow slits set every few meters up the staircase. Her own stomach was bursting - she was certain she'd popped a few stitches in the Button Dress. But Malcolm was far worse off than she. 

"Whaaaaat d'you do wif a drunken shaaaaaailor!" he sang off-key. Very, very off-key. "Whaaaat d'you do wif a drunken shaaaaailor! Whaaaaaat d'you do wif a drunken shaaaaaailor! Early in the mooorrrrrrniiiiiin'!" 

Hoshi winced, leaning her head as far to the side as she could to avoid his rank breath and piercing voice. "No more grog for you, sailor boy," she said firmly as they reached the door. Pushing it open with her foot, she guided him over to the bed and gave him a little push to send him tumbling amongst the bedclothes. 

Malcolm moaned happily and curled up, bunching the rich, textured blankets in his hands and hugging them under his chin like a small child would a teddy bear. "Grog's good," he mumbled, burying his nose in the sheets and yawning broadly. 

Hoshi rolled her eyes. "Next time, try not to get in a drinking contest with Gawain, okay? Remember, you're not a legendary king who's used to feasting and carousing and whooping it up. You're an anal armory officer on a Starfleet flagship. And a skinny one at that." 

He muttered something into the blankets, but nothing she could understand. 

"Get undressed, my liege," she ordered firmly, crossing her arms over her stomach. "Time for bed." 

"No," he said petulantly. "Comf'ble." 

"Yeah, well, if you think you're sleeping like that, you've got another think coming." Moving forward, Hoshi began unbuckling his belt, which had gone askew sometime during the feasting. "I'm too tired to try and find my own room in this castle, so we're bunking, Lieutenant. You smell like roast boar. If I sleep next to that smell, I'm going to dream I'm being turned on a spit over a fire, with an apple shoved in my mouth." 

Malcolm snickered but didn't fight as she tugged him into a sitting position and wrangled the tunic off over his head. Hoshi tossed it onto the chair beside the window, where it was quickly joined by the belt and his fine linen shirt. "Back," she ordered, nudging him onto his back on the bed. She refused to let her eyes wander over his bare chest. Her nose wrinkled as she caught a whiff of the alcohol that still lingered on his skin. "You need a bath." 

"Bath smath," he muttered, staring at the bed's canopy. 

"You wouldn't say that if you were me," she mumbled, tugging his boots off and setting them neatly beside the night table on her side of the bed. A silver basin holding a silver pitcher was set atop the table, and easily caught her eye. Peering into the pitcher, she saw the tell-tale wink of firelight reflecting off water. "It's good to be queen," she said with a smile, pouring some of the water into the basin. 

"Wha'sha doin'?" 

"I told you, you need a bath." Going to the chest of drawers beside the door - the one topped by the candelabra - she fished around until she found some dainty lace handkerchiefs. Not exactly washcloths, but there seemed to be plenty to spare. 

"Don' need a bath." 

"Oh yes you do. Sit up." She walked back to the bed and sat beside him as he dragged himself into an upright position. Daintily dipping one handkerchief into the basin, she began to rub the moist cloth over his bare back. One of the servants had already been along to start the fire, and it cast flickering autumn-colored patterns over his damp shoulders. 

Malcolm shivered. "Tha's cold," he complained. 

"Shh, let me work." Hoshi redipped the cloth and brought it back to rub his arm. Even relaxed, his bicep was something worthy of notice. //He could crack walnuts with that arm.// 

That was not a line of thought she wanted to follow. Shaking herself to clear her head, she smiled. "It's not so bad here," she said cheerfully, rubbing the wet handkerchief over his chest. "It's not everyday a girl gets to play queen and really BE queen. " 

"Mm." 

"And the countryside is beautiful. Don't you think?" 

"Mm." 

"It's almost like being on an unwelcome, yet somehow welcoming, vacation." 

"Hm." 

Hoshi rolled her eyes. //No lambs for the snakes…. No lambs for the bloody snakes.// "Malcolm, are you even listening to me? Malcolm? Lieutenant Reed?" 

_Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…_

If the situation hadn't been so embarrassing, she'd have laughed. As it was, she didn't know if she should be humiliated, infuriated, or depressed. It wasn't often a man fell asleep while she was giving him a sponge bath. Not often at all. In fact, she was quite certain this was the first time. 

Muttering about men and their baser impulses, she manhandled him into a more comfortable position on the bed, well off to the side, so that she'd have plenty of room for herself. She didn't bother to tuck him under the covers, but she took enough pity to cover him with one of the spare blankets folded over the foot of the bed. Grumbling, she stood and moved off a few steps to undress. 

It was remarkably easier to get OUT of the dress than it had been to get into it. Buttons that hadn't wanted to fasten that morning were more than happy to spring open under her nimble fingers. Hooks easily slid out of their respective eyes. Laces fell open with remarkable simplicity. When she finally shrugged out of the silky material, Hoshi couldn't resist a deep sigh of relief. God, it felt good to breathe freely again. For a few minutes, she just stood still, reveling in the sensation of her ribs swelling, then compressing, with each passing breath. 

She shivered as a bit of the castle's chill seeped through her thin cotton shift. So she turned to face the fire. 

And froze. 

He was watching her. 

"Malcolm," she said, hoping her voice wasn't actually as squeaky as it sounded in her ears. "I thought you were sleeping." 

"I was," he murmured, not looking away. 

Hoshi crossed her arms over her stomach self-consciously. "Have a nice nap then?" she teased, but the words felt empty. 

Malcolm must have sensed it too, because he ignored her. "Are you coming to bed?" 

Hoshi swallowed. He didn't sound very drunk as he said that. In fact, he sounded perfectly sober, if a little hypnotized. "I thought I might stay up a bit. Try to solve this problem of ours." 

A shadow passed over Malcolm's face. "You cannot solve it alone," he murmured. "It is equally my burden to bear." 

Hoshi frowned at him. "I think you've been playing king too long, Malcolm. You're starting to talk like one now. Unless that's how you get when you're sobering up." 

She watched as he pushed himself smoothly into a sitting position, resting against the headboard and staring at her. "Come to bed," he said softly. "Please, dearest." 

Hoshi's frown deepened. "Dear… What's wrong, Malcolm?" 

"Must you call me by that name?" 

Now Hoshi was really starting to worry. "What other name would I call you?" she asked warily. 

"Anything but that. Anything but the name of the lover you wish I was. Though I would be partial to Arthur." 

It was all Hoshi could do to keep her jaw from hitting the floor. "Ar… What!" 

Malcolm sighed and looked away, staring past her out the window. "Do you hate me so?" he asked softly. "So that you would not even use my name? Is my…. failure so complete?" 

The world was spinning. Hoshi stared at the man in bed before her. Indeed, his posture had changed. Even reclined as he was, there was a regal air about his pose. His chin was just slightly higher; his back minutely straighter; shoulders level and unstooped. 

Sitting there, rumpled and lined with weariness, was King Arthur. And Malcolm was nowhere in sight. 

It wasn't until she bumped against the chair that Hoshi realized she'd been backing away from him. She didn't understand what was going on, but she wasn't about to get any closer to him until she did. "Mal… Arthur." She swallowed. 

"Please, love. My life. Come to bed." He stretched out a hand toward her, and even the way he did that was laced with majesty. Tender blue eyes shone in the firelight. "I will not…" Lashes fluttered as he sighed and closed his eyes, letting his hand drop. 

"We will not…try tonight," he murmured. "I will not touch you, if you do not wish it." 

Hoshi squinted at him, leaning ever so slightly forward as she stared. All his poise was quickly draining away, until all she saw was a tired man wrapped in a blanket. "Arthur…," she murmured, and took a step towards the bed. 

Malcolm's head swung up, and he looked at her wearily. "Hoshi?" he mumbled, slurring a little. "'Sthat you?" 

Hoshi frowned, confused. "M… Is that you, Malcolm?" 

He hiccupped. 

Yep, definitely him. 

"'Scold," he muttered, shivering a little. "Aren' you cold, too?" _HIC!_ "Where'sh yer dress?" 

Wrapping her arms around herself again, Hoshi quickly trotted to the bed and clambered under the covers. "Never you mind where my dress is," she told him firmly, pulling the blankets up tightly under her chin and keeping her elbows tucked in close to her body as she pressed herself back into the pillows. "Go to sleep. I'm not looking forward to seeing you with a hangover, but tired and hungover is even less appealing." 

He muttered a few half-hearted complaints, but settled himself down amongst the pillows, wrapping his blanket tightly around himself. Belatedly, Hoshi realized that she had set him up on the side of the bed closest to the fire. His body was doing a fabulous job of blocking any and all heat the cheerful flames were throwing into the room. 

Watching the blanket-wrapped bundle that was his body, Hoshi edged a little closer, hoping to sap away some of his body heat. When he didn't respond, she slid a little closer. Then a little more. Then more still. 

"Yer gonna push me off," he mumbled sleepily, curling up tighter. 

She froze. "Sorry," she whispered. 

"'Sokay, Gwen." 

"Hoshi." 

"'Swhat I meant. Hoshi. 'Swhat I meant, Gwen." 

She didn't bother to correct him this time. 

  
  
_TBC…_


	3. Conversations by Firelight

**TITLE:** PENDRAGON  
_CHAPTER 3: Conversations by Firelight_  
  
**AUTHOR:** MNEMOSYNE  
**SUMMARY:** On a lush planet devoid of sentient life, the crew of the _Enterprise_ discover an ancient alien religious artifact that takes two of the crew on a vision quest to Camelot.   
  


* * *

  
The crackling fire was all Hoshi heard when she woke several hours later, curled in a ball and cuddled under the blankets like a kitten asleep in the yarn basket. She woke quickly, unsure of what had roused her. Her eyes opened, and she found herself staring into the unblocked apricot flames of the fire, which danced merrily in its hearth. It had obviously been stoked recently. 

Malcolm, however, was not there. 

"Malcolm?" she murmured groggily, pushing up onto one elbow and clutching the blankets tightly around herself to ward off the chill that invaded the bedroom beyond the fire's cheerful glow. 

"I'm here." 

Her eyes snapped to the window. It took a moment for them to adjust to the darkness after the bright flames of the fire, but she was soon able to make out his lean body reclining in the chair by the window. He didn't seem tense; quite the opposite. He looked relaxed to a fault, ready to slide out of the seat and collapse in a puddle on the floor. One side of his face was lit silvery-blue by the full moon, while the other side remained writhed in shadow, disturbed only occasionally by a lick of firelight. 

"Why are you up?" she asked quietly, sliding into a sitting position and keeping the blankets wrapped warmly around her body. Malcolm must have been freezing, sitting bare-chested by the drafty window, beyond the reach of the fire's warmth. A shiver worked down her spine thinking about it. "Couldn't you sleep?" 

"No." 

Hoshi frowned at his tone. Quiet; accepting. Not at all what she'd come to expect from the temperamental armory officer. "Why not?" She smiled slightly, trying to coax the same from him. "Bad dreams?" 

"In a way." 

THIS, on the other hand, she expected. This stubborn, mysterious, secretive behavior. Malcolm had never been a man who relished telling his secrets. "What sort of way?" Hoshi asked, determined to ferret out whatever the problem was and kill it now, before it became a full blown disaster in the near future. 

"Nothing, important, Hoshi. I'm fine. Go back to sleep." 

The communications officer felt herself bristle. _"I'm fine."_ "You know, you should have that tattooed somewhere prominent on your body, Malcolm," she snapped, glaring at him. "You're not fine. If you were fine, you'd be snoring away like a happy little schoolboy right now, instead of brooding in a cold room in an even more uncomfortable chair. Obviously something has you worried. I'm guessing it's not our predicament, because that's hardly a secret. Which means it has to be something to do with YOU. Yes, YOU. The implacable, indestructible tactical officer who doesn't need anyone's help at anytime, because he's tougher than your average bear. Well, wise up, buddy. We're stuck in this mess together, and whatever is affecting YOU therefore affects ME by default. So quit the shadow routine and tell me what's going on. NOW." She arched an eyebrow in true T'Pol fashion and kept her eyes glued to his face, determined not to let him wiggle his way out of this one. Perhaps she was being a little too harsh with him, but she was tired and cold and in an unusual bed surrounded by unusual sounds. She figured he could forgive her a little crankiness. 

Malcolm stared back at her for a while, but Hoshi refused to give in to the pressure his eyes exerted. Amazing, really; even cloaked in shadow, his eyes were like magnets, simultaneously drawing her in and pushing her away. She'd never before realized how dangerous a quality that was. If she were a criminal faced by this man, she wouldn't know whether to give herself up for lost, or run as fast and as far as she could to escape him. His eyes caused deadly indecision. In that split second of hesitation, he could pounce. Which was what made him so good at his job, and so difficult an opponent right now. He was waiting for her to either give up and let him win, or else turn tail and run away. To succeed, she had to meet him on his own ground and not back down. 

//Easier thought than done,// she thought grimly. 

Finally, whether because he was still too drunk to put up a fight, or because he was too tired to care, Malcolm sighed and looked away. Hoshi felt a tiny furl of happy flame light up inside her belly at the knowledge of this minor personal victory. 

But her happiness was short-lived. "I'm forgetting," Malcolm murmured, staring at the craggy windowsill. 

Hoshi tilted her head to the side. "Forgetting?" she asked, furrowing her brow. "Forgetting what?" 

She watched him reach out with one long fingered hand to rub his thumb against the edge of the window. "Little things," he replied quietly, absorbed by the actions of his fingers. "Big things. Things I know for certain I ought to remember, but don't." Looking away from the window, his eyes met hers again, and this time there was no repulsion in his gaze. He sucked her in immediately and held tight. "I don't know who I am anymore, Hoshi." 

"You're Malcolm," she murmured in reply, speaking slowly, trying to keep a tremble out of her voice. A vivid memory of their conversation earlier that night surfaced in her mind. _"Anything but that. Anything but the name of the lover you wish I was. Though I would be partial to Arthur."_

Malcolm barked out a bitter laugh and looked away again. Hoshi felt a terrible pain behind her eyes as their locked gazes broke apart. "Malcolm?" he snorted derisively. "Is that who I am?" 

"Yes." 

"Are you so sure? Are you so positive of that, Hoshi?" 

She nodded as firmly as she could muster. "I remember the times Malcolm has saved my life," she told him. "I remember eating dinner with him. I remember laughing with him. I won't believe those memories are somehow a lie." 

"Funny," he said, though there was no humor in his voice. "Those are precisely the things I DON'T remember." Fixing her with a piercing gaze, he continued. "Though I do remember other things. Things this… Malcolm wouldn't know." 

Hoshi swallowed. "Like…what?" 

He moved then. Swifter than a cat, lithe as a ripple of suede, until he was half-kneeling on the edge of the bed beside her, hovering like a storm cloud. "I remember you," he whispered. "But here comes the strangest of all - I remember things you've yet to do." He tilted his head, like a curious child examining a china doll, and idly touched her hair. "I remember how you will betray me." 

Hoshi stopped breathing. "Malcolm-" she whispered, but he cut her off. 

"No!" he snarled, twining his fingers tightly in her hair and yanking her head back. Hoshi yelped in pain. "That is not my name! I am Arthur Pendragon, king of the Britons, and you will address me as such, though you may be a whore of Babylon!" 

Tears of pain and fear pricked at Hoshi's eyes, but she refused to let them fall. "You said you were forgetting," she forced out hoarsely, through a rapidly closing throat. "You didn't say you'd forgotten everything. I don't believe this is you, Malcolm. Or Arthur. I don't believe either of you are the kind of man who would treat a woman this way." She swallowed, and saw his sharp eyes follow the bobbing of her throat. 

A moment later, she felt his angry fingers loosen, then fall from her hair. She gasped and rolled away from him a space, scrambling back against the headboard and staring at him. He had slumped forward over his lap, broken. 

"You are right," he whispered, barely audible. "You are right, my love. I can…never apologize enough. I… I am besieged." 

"Besieged by what?" Hoshi asked, not bothering to hide the shaking of her voice this time. 

"Images. Sights. Memories…" The armory officer looked up, his normally clear eyes clouded with confusion. "I do not remember where I was born. Or rather, I remember precisely, but twice. I… I remember Tintagel, but it is as if the memory is at war with another, equally vivid one. I remember… I remember… oceans?" 

Hoshi felt her heart break a little at the utter distress and bewilderment in his voice. He was staring at her as if she could somehow demystify the puzzle of his conflicting lives. "Malcolm, I…" She sighed with frustration and pushed herself out from under the blankets, then crawled across the brief space between them and twined her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. 

"I don't know how to fix this, Malcolm," she whispered near his ear, rubbing his shoulders with firm, smooth strokes. "I don't know how to make this better. But I can tell you that you ARE Malcolm Reed, and that I haven't forgotten one moment of time we've spent together." She pressed her chin against his shoulder and closed her eyes, rocking their bodies gently from side to side. 

Malcolm's arms wrapped around her middle, holding on for dear life. "Guinevere…" he whispered against her hair. 

Her grip tightened. "Hoshi," she told him. "I'm Hoshi." 

A shudder worked through him. "I meant that," he told her. "I meant Hoshi…." His hands skimmed over her back. "I remember you, Hoshi…" 

"Do you?" It was getting decidedly harder to breathe. The air was thinning out; her lungs were fluttering with the effort of drawing a breath. 

Lips touched the delicate skin behind her ear. "Yes…" Warm breath heated the cool skin of her shoulder. "I remember you." 

"Who are you?" 

"Malcolm Reed." 

"Are you sure?" 

She heard him moan faintly near her ear. Then, slowly, he drew back. "No," he whispered, gazing into her eyes, apology written all over his face. 

Hoshi had to fight back a curse. "I-" 

"I… I am not sure who I am, Hoshi," he murmured, cutting her off. "But… I DO remember you." He cupped her cheek. "Both of you. Vivid as rose petals on snow." 

Letting her eyes drift shut, Hoshi leaned into his touch. "What do you remember?" 

"I remember seeing you for the first time. How scared you were to be traveling so fast and so far." His thumb stroked over her cheekbone. "I remember telling Merlin I would marry you. I remember pineapple cake. I remember naming you queen. " 

Hoshi released a slow shaky breath and opened her eyes. She was shocked to feel tears slide down her cheeks as she did so. "Malcolm…" she whispered. 

He smiled. "I will be whoever you want me to be, dearest. I will be any man for you." 

The lump in her throat made it impossible to swallow. "Don't," she whispered, drawing away from his hand and averting her eyes. "I… I'm confused…" 

"So was I, when I first woke. But I find it is a bearable confusion, once it has been accepted." 

"No," she said firmly, looking at him again. "No, you don't understand." 

Malcolm frowned. "How so, dearest?" 

She grabbed his hand again and held it to her cheek. "I remember those things, too," she whispered. "I remember them all." 

  


* * *

  
Silence reigned for the next hour, broken only by the crackling of the fire and the steady breathing of the bed's two inhabitants. Hoshi had her cheek pillowed on Malcolm's shoulder, and he had his arm wrapped securely around her waist. It was a protective posture for the pair of them, as though each was trying to keep the other from somehow melting away like morning mist. 

An hour later, almost to the minute, Malcolm broke the silence. 

"I do not understand this, Hoshi," he said softly, staring at the bed's canopy. "This vision we both remember… What does it hope to prove? How does destroying who we were fulfill its purpose?" 

"It was not designed for humans," Hoshi murmured in reply, barely aware of the new dignity of her speech. "It was designed for a race long dead and far removed from us. How it interacts with species outside its province is entirely in the hands of God." 

"But what does it MEAN?" Arthur's calm diplomacy was interrupted for a moment by Malcolm's tell-tale impatience. "How are we to see this vision through to the end if we cannot see it from the outside and read its meaning? When we have become so completely involved in it that we BECOME what it has deigned us to be." 

Hoshi sighed. These were questions she had been debating throughout their hour of silence. It kept her mind occupied, away from the frantic scouring of memories, some duplicated, others vanished. What had been her nicknames as a child? What day had she been born? 

She felt him sigh. "I should never have crossed that threshold," he murmured, his hand stroking her back. "Then this would never have happened." 

Hoshi pushed herself up, off his shoulder, and stared down into his eyes. "If you say that one more time, Malcolm Pendragon, I will beat you bruised and bloody. This is not, nor has it ever been, your fault." 

She could tell from his eyes he didn't believe her. "The blame must rest somewhere, and my shoulders are strong." 

"Your shoulders already bear far more than they should." She kissed his arm, before realizing that Hoshi would not do such a thing, though Guinevere would. "You carry the world and the moon about your neck, my Lord, as though you somehow were responsible for all the problems beneath their dominion." 

"I am king." 

"You are NOT." She paused. "Not entirely. And if you were, you would still not be responsible for the poor planting of crops by a farmer in Normandy. You are NOT God." 

Malcolm closed his eyes, but said nothing. 

Confound the man. He was not helping her make sense of this nonsensical vision, and she couldn't decipher it on her own. "Do you wish to get out of here?" she asked tersely. 

"Yes." 

"Then do not waste your energies on futile flagellation." She touched his cheek and he opened his eyes. She smiled. "Who are you?" 

He frowned. "You know I do not know." 

"But you do. This vision has told you. What does it say when you hear it in your head?" 

Malcolm's frown deepened. "It does not… SPEAK to me. I does nothing but plague me with too many memories and too few answers." 

Hoshi's frustration began to skyrocket. "This is not helping!" she snapped. "Do not tell me how this vision makes you FEEL. Tell ME what this vision is telling YOU." Grasping at straws, she asked, "What do you remember?" 

"Of what?" 

"Of anything! What are you remembering now, this moment, as we lie here?" 

"Our wedding night." 

That took her aback. "You are?" 

He smiled fondly and nodded. "Yes." 

Fighting back a blush, she asked, "What do you remember?" 

His hand began to move on her back again, rubbing slowly up and down. "I remember how shy we both were," he murmured. "We were still children then, hardly aware of our own bodies, let alone each other's." 

He tugged her closer and pressed his nose into her hair. "I remember how sweet you smelled. Like honey. You told me you'd bathed in honey and milk, and it lingered around you like a flower's perfume. I remember kissing your arm…" Lost in memory, he repeated the action, grazing his lips against Hoshi's upper arm. 

She shivered, but didn't push him away. "What else?" she whispered. 

"You do not remember?" he teased, nipping wickedly at the side of her neck. 

Hoshi blushed. "Of course I do," she protested weakly. "I… What do you remember… AFTER that?" 

Malcolm sighed and rested back against the pillows, staring into her eyes. "Nothing." 

Untrue. "It does not suit you to lie," she told him softly. "It does not suit your countenance." 

"The truth is less flattering." 

"Nonetheless, I would hear it." She stroked his hair back behind his ear. "What do you remember?" 

He sighed again and turned his head away to gaze at the fire. "Waiting." 

"Waiting for what?" 

Silence. 

"Malcolm…" 

"Arthur." 

"Do not quibble with me!" She could throttle him. It was like pulling teeth from an unwilling victim. "What were you in wait for?" 

When he looked back to her eyes, Hoshi felt as though a bucket of icy water had been dumped over her body. 

"An heir," he whispered. 

Oh. 

"Oh…" she echoed her silent thoughts. 

He exhaled and closed his eyes in unison. "Waiting," he went on. "For so many years now. The whispers. The glances. The questions." He held her tightly. "Hoshi… Guinevere… I could not give you up, though Merlin swore you would be my ruin. But this failure consumes me. It is the earth and moon I wear about my neck. It is the world upon my shoulders. It is my ultimate fault." She could hear the emotion building in his throat. 

"What man am I," he whispered hoarsely, "that I cannot even give children to the woman I love more than my life, my kingdom, and my crown?" He shook his head, looking away. "What man am I, then, to rule this kingdom? Who could call me king?" 

Hoshi didn't speak. Instead, she cupped his face between her pale hands and tilted his eyes back up to look at her. "You are not the only one waiting, my Lord," she whispered. "You are not the only one who suffers. And I believe I know this vision, now. I believe I knew it all along." 

  
  
_TBC…_


	4. Deciphering Cyphers

**TITLE:** PENDRAGON  
_CHAPTER 4: Deciphering Cyphers_  
  
**AUTHOR:** MNEMOSYNE  
**SUMMARY:** On a lush planet devoid of sentient life, the crew of the _Enterprise_ discover an ancient alien religious artifact that takes two of the crew on a vision quest to Camelot.   
**NOTES:** I realize the idea of Arthur and Guinevere having difficulty conceiving is not original, but I assure you, it came TOTALLY out of the blue in this story. LOL! I didn't know it was going to crop up until it was suddenly THERE. LOL! If you'd like to read a much better (and more in depth) exploration of that topic, I highly recommend Marion Zimmer Bradley's masterwork, "The Mists of Avalon." I read it years ago, and it's remained with me to this day. But until then, I hope you'll enjoy the rest of my humble story. :-D   
  


* * *

  
Malcolm sat up and hovered over her. "What?" he asked sharply, more Malcolm than Arthur for the moment. "What do you mean, you've known all along?" 

Hoshi almost laughed at the look on his face. It was comical. Obviously, the impatient tactical officer in him was annoyed that she'd been holding back vital information this whole time. "It was not knowledge I was aware I possessed," she explained. "But now that I think on it, I don't know how I could have been so blind." 

"Tell me!" 

This time, she allowed herself to laugh as she pushed up into a sitting position next to him. "Has anyone mentioned the Holy Grail?" she asked, gazing down into his eyes. 

He frowned up at her, pushing higher on his elbow. "What do you mean?" 

"The Grail. The Cup of Christ. One of the most well-known aspects of the Arthur legend. Have you heard tell of it?" 

"No…" He answered slowly, obviously unsure where she was heading. 

"What about the Green Knight?" 

"What?" 

"The Green Knight. Of Gawain and the Green Knight? Of British literature. Have you heard whispers of that while we have been here? Did Gawain once mention it?" 

"No." He sat up beside her, gazing levelly into her eyes. "What are you saying, dearest?" 

Arthur was back in charge. "Tristan and Iseult," she continued, unswayed. "Merlin. The Lady of the Lake. Even Excalibur. Have you heard anyone speak of these things? Have you heard any of them mentioned? The defining moments of the Arthur legend - have you encountered them anywhere other than your own mind?" 

Malcolm shook his head slowly, never breaking their eye contact. "What does it mean, Hoshi?" he asked in a hushed voice, as if worried speaking louder would break her concentration. 

Taking a deep breath, she continued. "This vision, Malcolm" she murmured. "It's not about the legend. This is YOUR vision, have no doubt. You were the first over the threshold, and the obelisk is telling you who you are. But it is not using archetypes and legend; the Arthur of your vision is a man. A simple man. A king, perhaps, but a king who gets drunk, and who has difficulty sleeping, and… and a man who cannot conceive a child with his wife." She saw him wince and felt a pang of sympathy, but made herself go on. "The Arthur of your vision is fallible, just as all men are fallible, even those thought great as gods. And therein lies the answer to this riddle." 

He was dangling from a thread now. She could almost see it, glistening above his head like spider silk, keeping him aloft as she spun her web of truth around him. "What does this mean for us, Hoshi?" he asked, not pleading, but placing his fate in her hands. "I am no good at dreams. Am I a king and you my queen? Is that what this means? Please, dearest, I cannot understand it alone." 

Spiders were tricky animals. They spun webs that were nearly invisible to the creatures they preyed upon, then sat quietly, curled in a corner, and waited for a juicy blue bottle to fly through and get stuck. They were subtle predators, depending on surprise and cunning to win them their daily meals. 

Here, now, as Hoshi gazed into this man's eyes, she was feeling very much like a tasty morsel writhing in the obelisk's web. It had drafted her to do its dirty work. It had tapped her to deliver its sentence. If she refused, they would lose themselves to this vision; lose sight of all they had been, and would someday have become. If, on the other hand, she gave in and told him what the vision had told her, he would know more about himself than he'd probably ever wanted to learn. 

And he would hate her for it. 

But they would be free. 

Hoshi Sato made the hardest decision of her life in one brief second, and began to speak. 

She shook her head slowly. "It is not like that, Malcolm. That is not how this works." She swallowed. "This place was never meant for us. This place was meant for people who died centuries before we crawled out of the oceans. But it is giving us something we know - a story. An allegory. Something we can interpret. Do you see? This is not about kings and queens and vassals and knights. This is not about Camelot. It IS about you - your story. Arthur's story. Your moral." 

"What is my moral, Hoshi?" 

She rested her palm on his cheek, the one facing away from the fire. It was cool to the touch. "You are hollow, Malcolm," she whispered, forcing the words past the lump in her throat. "So much potential, but you keep it leashed. Arthur wed Guinevere, despite Merlin's protests, because he loved her. And Guinevere ruined him, even as she loved him. All that he had built - all that he was - fell to pieces, and became the stuff of fairytales and legends. The promise of Camelot was brought low by the hand of a woman. Nothing tangible remained; not even one shard of the Round Table. 

"You, Malcolm, have wed yourself, too. Not to anything as romantic as a woman, but to something deeper and more insidious. You have wed yourself to your failures. Your fear of water. Your estrangement from your family. The hollow ache of every woman you've never let yourself love. No matter how much you accomplish - no matter how many lives you save, or feats you complete - you will only remember the things that you consider shameful. You have never let yourself see the beauties of this world, Malcolm. You have never let yourself see the roses of Eden for the snakes at your feet. You have never allowed yourself to believe yourself worthy of that beauty, and so it lays dormant inside you, shriveling like tea leaves left too long in the sun. Your beauty has atrophied, Malcolm Reed, and all that remains of it are your eyes." 

She took a deep breath, and forced herself to plunge onward, before those beautiful eyes could deter her. "And when you die, Malcolm Reed - Arthur Pendragon - all that will remain are the sad whispers of your friends. And they will say, _No family, no home. A box of medals and a phase pistol. How did he come to this?_" 

She steeled herself. 

"And then they'll forget you, Malcolm. They won't talk about you at reunions and parties. They'll teach you in classrooms, but YOU'LL be forgotten. You'll become an allegory, just like this vision. Just like Arthur. He became a Christ figure. You'll become a tactic. The Reed maneuver. Your coffin will be a dusty history book, and no one will remember your first name, just as no one remembers Arthur's last without prompting." 

Malcolm was staring at her with unfathomable blue eyes. She wanted to beg him to speak, but feared what he would say. 

"And what of you?" he finally murmured, voice husky. "What of you, my Guinevere?" 

Hoshi swallowed and closed her eyes, letting her hand fall away from his cheek as her chin dipped down to rest against her chest. 

"Don't you see?" she whispered, not trusting her voice to go any louder. "Guinevere was a puppet; a pawn in Arthur's downfall. She... she loved him, but she couldn't stop herself from destroying him. She couldn't mend what had been broken." A deep sigh shook her shoulders and fluttered in her stomach. "In the end, despite all her best intentions, she was helpless to save him from his fate." A breath. "And so am I." 

  
************ 

  
The silence was killing her, sure as slow poison. It trickled through her veins, turning her blood to ice and crusting her lungs with frost. Soon, she would be cold as stone, pale as smoke, with dry lips painted blue by death's brush. 

If only he would speak. Nothing had passed between them in the twenty minutes since she'd finished extolling their fortunes; not so much as an eyelash fluttered in thought, or a cramped muscle flexed to relieve tension. Stillness and silence reigned in the tower bedroom. Even the crackling fire had calmed down, fading from brilliant oranges to eye-tricking scarlets. Any warmth it had afforded had slowly ebbed away, leaving an unbearable chill in the air. 

She couldn't blame him. She had just told him he was fated to die ignominiously, doomed by his own pessimistic nature. If he HADN'T reacted badly, she would have been frightened. 

"I have almost forgotten completely." 

The words were spoken softly, but they sounded like a rifle shot in the quiet room. "What?" she whispered. 

Slowly, Malcolm raised his head from his intense study of the counterpane and stared into her eyes. "Malcolm," he explained. "I have almost forgotten him. Bits and pieces… Only fragments remain." 

Hoshi frowned. "That… That is not possible. This vision…" 

"It is a strange thing," he went on, as if she hadn't spoken, "to know how you are going to die. I can see it, clear as day. I will be slain by my bastard son; murdered on the battlefield. I will order [I]Excalibur[/I] flung back into the water, and then I will die. Fairy women will bear me on a raft to Avalon, and I will become legend." He laughed humorlessly. "Featureless legend, as you pointed out. A name, but no soul." 

He held up a hand to keep her from responding. "No," he said firmly. "Hoshi, you are right. I am… my own worst enemy. I have doomed myself to this destiny. " His gaze softened. "I can see your fate, too, dearest. I see you, standing on the parapet of Joyous Garde*, gazing down at me, begging me silently to leave in peace." He shook his head faintly. "The siege will last for months. Knights will die by the hundred, until they soak the ground with their noble blood. And in the end, I will win you back… only to lose you again." A deep sigh seeped past his lips as he wilted. "Mordred will hold you to bargain, and then I will kill Mordred, and Mordred will kill me." He barked out a sharp laugh. "Funny, that. I will be killed by my son. I could not get a child with you, dear Guinevere, but I could with Morgana; and that child will kill me." Grim humor flickered in his eyes. "I will be killed by my heir, and Malcolm Reed will be killed by his duty. Even in death, fitted like a glove." 

Hoshi shook her head firmly. "No. The vision… it is over now. Soon, we will be back with the others." She clasped his hand tightly. "Do not give in to the memories so easily, my love. Fight them." 

"Why?" 

"We will be home soon!" 

"Will we? What home do I have? What future? Like this, I can die a king and a hero. As Malcolm, I would die as little more than a footnote." He shook his head again. "I think I will take the hero's death, Guinevere." 

"Hoshi," she reminded him, though her voice faltered a little with the name. 

"Are you so sure?" 

She wasn't. 

A warm hand cupped her cheek, and Hoshi found her face being tilted up until she was gazing deeply into his blue eyes. "You needn't stay with me, dearest," he whispered, brushing her lips with his own. "I know you will not, whichever life you choose. You will be stolen away from me, by my closest, most trusted friend. It will break my heart, and people will bleed for it, but in the end, there is no changing legend. It is even more immobile than history." 

"Arthur…" 

A faint smile graced his lips. "I have always loved how you say my name." 

Guinevere slid her hand up his arm and buried it in his hair. "I will never leave you, my love, my lord," she whispered against his mouth. "Temptations greater than the flesh may grace my doorstep, and I would never falter." 

"Do not vow what you cannot promise." 

"I can and do." 

"You are a foolish woman." 

"I am your wife. You married me - the blame is yours alone." 

A low laugh rumbled in Arthur's chest. "Woman," he chuckled. "You will be the death of me." 

She grinned. "Your life, my lord, or I'll know the reason why." 

"Mmmm…" She watched his eyes drift shut as he moved slowly forward, tilting his head to press his lips gently against hers. The queen moaned happily, wrapping her arms around his neck and furrowing her fingers through his hair as he slowly tilted her back to the bed… 

….Then, suddenly, as though a hook had been caught in her hair, she felt her entire body jerk backward. There was no time to cry for help as she felt herself torn out of the bed, away from the king's strong arms. 

"ARTHUR!" she shrieked as the bedroom melted away like mist. 

"Hoshi!" 

The queen raised her hand to shield her eyes from the bright sunlight that suddenly blinded her. "Arthur! Where is Arthur!" she cried, trying to focus on the man who was speaking to her. 

"Arthur? Who in hell is Arthur?" He knelt beside her. She could make out blonde hair and amiable blue eyes. "If you mean Malcolm, he's still in there. But we'll have him out in a jiffy." 

Guinevere blinked at the man, eyes watering from the effort of trying to focus despite the sun. "Who… Who are you?" she asked. 

The man frowned. "What?" 

"Who are you?" she asked again, using a firmer tone and trying her best to assume a regal…slouch. 

"Hoshi? You all right?" The man tried to lay a hand on her forehead, but she smacked it away. 

"Stop calling me that!" she exclaimed angrily, scooting a short distance away from him. "I am Guinevere, queen of Britannia, wife of Arthur. And I demand to know who you are, sir!" 

The man's jaw was slack enough to catch flies. 

"Aw… shit," he cursed. Guinevere blushed. 

The man sighed. "The name's Trip, yer highness," he told her, tilting his head to the side. "And I sure's hell hope this amnesia thing you've got wears off, cuz you're a heck of a lot more fun when you AREN'T being royalty. And because if Malcolm's acting all kinglike when we drag his sorry ass out of that building thingy, I think I'm gonna kill him." 

"Malcolm?" 

"Arthur." 

Of course. "And you're… Trip." A funny enough name. 

"Yes, ma'am. Your highness. Whatever infernal thing you wanna be called." He stopped, thought for a moment, and chuckled. "Guess you can call me Lancelot." 

She felt herself go white as a sheet. 

"Hey, you all ri-" 

"Commander!" 

The man named Trip looked over his shoulder at another man who had called to him. "What's up, Travis?" 

"It's Lieutenant Reed, sir!" the dark-skinned young man replied. "We've got him, but he's not breathing!" 

"Aw, hell no. Hell no!" Trip leapt to his feet and hurtled down the rocky embankment, towards where a towering stone spire stood out in stark contrast to the natural setting. A crowd had gathered near what appeared to be a door in the side of the structure. At first, Guinevere couldn't see what they were fussing over. But after squinting at the crowd for several seconds, she caught a glimpse of a figure - a man - collapsed on the ground in front of the door. 

It was Arthur. 

And she fainted. 

  
_TBC…_

  
_*Lancelot's castle of legend_


	5. Reawakenings

**TITLE:** PENDRAGON  
_CHAPTER 5: Reawakenings_  
  
**AUTHOR:** MNEMOSYNE  
**SUMMARY:** On a lush planet devoid of sentient life, the crew of the _Enterprise_ discover an ancient alien religious artifact that takes two of the crew on a vision quest to Camelot.   


  


* * *

  
"You sure they're gonna be all right, Doc?" 

"I assure you, Commander, they will be bright eyed and bushy tailed shortly." 

"You sure? Cuz they're both looking kind of pale to me." 

"Trip, let's let Doctor Phlox do his job while we do ours. Doctor, you'll let us know as soon as there's any change?" 

"Certainly, Captain." 

"Okay then. Trip, come on." 

"But, what if they wake up after we leave? Or… What if they don't wake up at all? I mean, Malcolm's got this fragile thing going that you wouldn't realize if you hadn't been stuck in a shuttlepod with him for a long time. Alone. That kind of thing, you really get to know a per-" 

There was the tell-tale swish of a door opening and closing, then the normal silence of Sickbay. 

"It's quite all right, Ensign," Hoshi heard Phlox say cheerfully. "They're gone now. You can open your eyes." 

She did so, gingerly, squinting against the septic light of the room. "How did you know/" she asked groggily. 

The Doctor gave her an inhumanly large grin. "It is my job to know the conscious or unconscious condition of patients under my care. I could tell from your readings. But I thought you might like a bit of time to collect your thoughts before you spoke to them." 

Pushing herself into a sitting position with a moan, Hoshi put a hand to her temple and tried to stop the room from spinning. "What happened?" she grumbled, confused. "I feel like someone landed a squadron of Klingon battle cruisers behind my eyes." 

"You and Lieutenant Reed were drugged, it appears. There should be no permanent damage, though you will have the headache for several days." He pressed a hypospray to her neck. Hoshi felt the familiar tingle of painkillers rushing through her bloodstream, and sighed happily as the throbbing in her head began to ease. 

"Drugged?" she asked dreamily, closing her eyes and leaning back on her hands. 

"The obelisk appeared to be centered on some kind of minute gaseous fissure in the planet's surface. The substance it secreted is extremely hallucinogenic." He smiled again, patting her hand. "I'm not sure what you saw in there, but to quote a phrase Commander Tucker seems quite fond of, it must have been a doozy." 

Hoshi managed a weak smile for him. "You could say that." Suddenly, she frowned. "Malcolm? Where is he? Is he all right?" 

Phlox nodded. "He's just over here." The Denobulan walked a few steps away and drew back a curtain that had been blocking her view of the neighboring bed. "He got quite a bit more exposure to the gas than you, so he hasn't yet awoken." 

He looked like death. Trip hadn't been kidding when he said Malcolm was fragile; seeing him so pale and … inattentive was frightening. Normally he was like a live wire, sparking and ready for action. Now, he looked like a rung out dish rag. "God," she whispered, staring at his milky face. "How long were we in there?" 

"Approximately one hour." 

She gaped at the doctor. "An HOUR?" 

"That is correct. Commander Tucker had to fish you out with grappling hooks, to keep from getting caught himself. Quite an ingenious little plan." 

"ONE HOUR!" 

"You were expecting something else?" 

"Yeah, you could say that." She looked back to Malcolm again. They'd been in the vision world for almost an entire day, yet they'd only been away for an hour. //Just like a dream,// she thought vaguely. 

A groan from the object of her attention interrupted her thoughts. "Where am I?" Malcolm asked raspily, not bothering to open his eyes until after he'd finished speaking. They were bloodshot and red. 

"Sickbay, Lieutenant," Phlox said cheerfully, pressing a hypospray to Reed's neck before he could move around too much. "Welcome back to the land of the living. You gave us all quite a scare there for a moment." 

Suddenly, Hoshi remembered Travis' frantic call. _He's not breathing!_ "What happened?" she asked quickly, watching as the Denobulan helped Malcolm sit up. 

"The good Lieutenant seems to have spent his entire time inside the obelisk collapsed directly on top of the fissure," Phlox replied. "Luckily, he blocked enough of the hallucinogen to keep you both from being poisoned. But it nearly shut down Mr. Reed's entire respiratory and cardiovascular systems." 

"A shame I don't remember that bit," Malcolm wheezed, wincing as he shifted to get more comfortable. 

"Indeed it is," Phlox said, a note of genuine regret in his voice at having to pass up another chance to study the human anatomy. 

"Doctor, could you give us a moment alone?" Hoshi heard herself ask. 

Phlox nodded. "Of course, Ensign. I'll just be feeding my bat, if you need me." He smiled, first at Hoshi, then Malcolm, and shuffled away. 

For a long, long minute, there was silence. 

"So-" 

"I-" 

They laughed nervously at having overlapped each other. "You go first," Hoshi offered. 

"No, you. I insist." 

"Really, Malcolm. You." 

"You, Ensign. That's an order." 

So they were back to Ensign and Lieutenant, eh? Well, she'd see about that. "About what happened…" she started nervously. "In the spire…" 

"I don't know what you're talking about, Ensign." 

She stared at him, dumbstruck. Didn't know? Impossible. She remembered every second of it, clear as crystal. "You're lying," she countered. 

"Are you accusing a senior officer of lying?" 

"No, I'm accusing Malcolm Reed of lying. Lieutenant Reed would understand the importance of truth." 

"Lieutenant Reed understands the importance of letting sleeping dogs lie." 

"Except this _sleeping dog_ happens to be running around my legs and yapping at my ankles." She sighed and leaned to the side a little, getting closer to him. 

"I'm sorry," she said softly. 

Malcolm glanced sideways at her, then away again. "No need to apologize for anything, Ensign," he said crisply, staring at an invisible mark on the wall. 

Hoshi shook her head. "No, Malcolm. Don't do this. I know you remember, and I know you remember what I said." She closed her eyes and swallowed, but made herself continue. "All that stuff… about who you are." She shook her head, opening her eyes again. "It wasn't true. It was just a product of the hallucinogen. I wasn't in control of my conduct when I said them, and I can't do anything but apologize and ask you to forgive me. It was… way out of line for me to say those things." She sighed and looked away again. "I'm sorry." 

She could feel his eyes on her profile, but refused to meet his gaze. It was too painful, remembering what she'd said to him. She couldn't imagine how he must be 

"It's all true, you know." 

She looked up then, and made herself meet his eyes. "What? What's true?" 

"What you said, inside the obelisk." He wasn't teasing her. He wasn't angry. He was quiet; accepting. Much as Arthur had been when he'd told her he was forgetting. "About how I've doomed myself; wedded myself to my failures. It's true - all of it." 

Hoshi forced herself to swallow past the lump in her throat. "Malcolm-" 

"But you were wrong about one thing." 

"What was that?" She made herself blink several times, forcing back tears. 

"About never seeing beauty." He shook his head slightly. "That's not true. I've seen things more beautiful than I ever thought possible." 

"Like…what?" 

He smiled faintly. "Like nebulae. Like double sunsets on alien worlds." His eyes softened. "Like beautiful women vowing they'd never leave me, no matter what the temptation." 

Hoshi felt herself blush deep crimson. 

"I know it wasn't you, Hoshi," he murmured. "I know it was Guinevere. But it was beautiful nonetheless. Thank you." 

How was she supposed to respond? Was she supposed to nod and say, _"Hey, no problem"_? Was she supposed to shrug it off? Was she supposed to admit she wasn't so entirely different from Guinevere in that sentiment? 

She decided to go the simple route. "You're welcome," she said softly. 

They sat in companionable silence for a while, letting the painkillers pulse through their systems and soothe unrealized aches and pains. 

"Do you think it was real?" she asked, voicing the question that had dangled like a bone in the air between them. 

"I don't know," Malcolm answered softly. 

She paused, then asked, "Do you hope it was?" 

He looked at her then, blue eyes unusually distant. "I'm not sure," he murmured thoughtfully. "Do you?" 

She took a moment to decide. "No," she said firmly. "I don't." 

"Why not?" 

"Because I don't like the idea of a being a helpless audience. I'd rather be a helpful participant." 

His laugh took her by surprise. "What's so funny?" she asked defensively. 

"You don't realize it, but you WERE a helpful participant," he told her with a grin. 

"How so?" She frowned. 

"You made me realize what a priggish fool I can be sometimes," he explained quietly. "That doesn't mean I'm going to change anytime soon, but… I'm aware of it now. I always have been, I think, though I've never let it affect me. It's just…who I am." 

She managed a small smile. "Then I guess the hallucinogens did their job after all, didn't they?" 

"It would appear so." 

With a wider smile, Hoshi reached across the space between them and grabbed his hand. "You know, I don't think it was as dour in there as I made it out to be." 

After a moment, Malcolm let his fingers loosen and lace with hers. "How so?" 

"Well, there's this thing about King Arthur that hadn't really occurred to me, and I think it makes everything a lot more positive." 

"What's that?" 

She squeezed his hand. "In the legend, Arthur eventually comes back." She rubbed her thumb over his knuckles. "He gets a second chance." 

She saw him mull that over for a bit, then saw a faint smile flicker on his lips. "I suppose he does," he murmured. "Of course… There's no mention of Guinevere when he returns." 

Hoshi shrugged. "Forget Guinevere. She was a weak, helpless little puppet. Arthur would need someone much stronger than that when he returns. Someone much more culturally aware." 

"Someone like a communications specialist?" he asked, voice light with amusement. 

"Perhaps," she answered noncommittally. "Or a worldly wise engineer…" 

"No!" 

Hoshi laughed, then slipped off her bunk, toddling across the space between them to perch on the edge of his bed. "Okay then," she said, smiling. "We'll go with option A." 

"I like that idea," he replied, reaching up to stroke her hair gently. 

She stared into his eyes. They were faceted, she realized; different shades of blue and green, mixed together to make his distinctive steely gaze. Only they weren't steely right now; they were soft, like ripples on a forest pool. Beautiful, just as they had been in the vision. 

"My lord," she whispered, not looking away. "What happened after I was stolen away?" 

His hand kept caressing her hair, unchecked. "I died," he murmured. 

She reached up to still his hand, clutching it tightly in her own. "How?" 

He shrugged. "Months passed, and you were nowhere to be found. Mordred declared me lovelorn and unfit to rule. He made war on Camelot, until I met him on the fields beside the Lady's silver lake. We fought, and he slew me, even as I slew him with _Excalibur's_ gleaming blade." 

"But… you were in there less than a minute after I was taken. You could not have lived months and months in that time." 

"But I did." 

"But…how!" 

He shrugged. "The spire exists in a temporal dilation. It knows nothing of time. It gave me one night with you, then many, many months alone." He shook his head. "I do not want to live that way again." 

Leaning forward, Hoshi rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. "Don't worry, Malcolm," she whispered. "You won't have to." 

She felt soft lips brush the crown of her head. "Sweet dreams, dearest," he whispered against her hair, curling his arms around her waist. 

"Sweet dreams, my love," she murmured, before letting the beat of his heart and the soft, memorable scent of his aftershave lull her to sleep. 

  
  
**THE END**


End file.
